Animal Shithouse – Who Taught You To Hate?

Animal Shithouse come straight outta the mean streets of, errrrmmmm, Royal Tunbridge Wells, a town whose only previous claim to punk fame, to the best of my knowledge, was giving birth to the Anti-Nowhere League. However, If you put geography and a tendency to cause heart failure in the leafy suburban town’s residents aside, that’s where the similarities end. Whereas the Anti-Nowhere League were pure shock and outrage, Animal Shithouse are a very different beast, they deliver abrasive modern hardcore, although rather than purely going for all out shock they have a point to make. It has to be said with their chosen moniker there is a degree of shock and awe involved, and their debut EP, Who Taught You To Hate?, only confirms this, but for very different reasons.

Keeping with the theme of shock and awe is the opening track, Downing A Red Stripe And Punching An Old Lady Called Penny, that on the surface would seem to be a shock tactic, but scratch beneath the surface and you find this is not just an exercise in upsetting the locals, although it probably ticks that box as well. Amidst the fury is a darkly comedic angst ridden exploration of the inability to cope in an ever changing world coupled with an “ironic jab at punk’s glorification of violence”. It also contains the most unexpected breakdown in the history of hardcore. This is followed by the unsettling ambient 56 seconds of Snowing In March that acts as prelude to CK, that sits in stark contrast to its predecessors. Dark electronic elements merge with hardcore rage in an unexpected twist to an already unpredictable EP.

MOREMOREMORE!!! takes Who Taught You To Hate? in another direction, a brief brutal exploration of the need for constant excess, unsurprisingly this is is followed by the equally brief 2:53, that actually clocks in at 1:06, but this is just poetic fury rather than full on hardcore and offers yet another twist in this short unpredictable EP. Finally we get Enemy that tackles the issue of male sexual violence and aggression, and calls for accountability, in that sense we have gone from exploring violence and binge culture to seeking a solution, which is no mean feat in the space of just thirteen minutes.

Animal Shithouse are not hardcore in the traditional sense, the fury is certainly there but it comes at it from such an obtuse angle that it’s only distantly related, the term shock and awe is certainly applicable, but rather than just seeking outrage this is a band that explores and confronts some of society’s ills. Oddly poetic yet containing all the rage you could wish for, Animal Shithouse have released a debut EP that confronts society both sonically and poetically. Surprising, unique and unsettling they are part of a new wave of noise merchants from across the UK & Ireland, along with the likes of The Battery Farm, Meryl Streek and Benefits, that are addressing society’s shortcomings head on.

Who Taught You To Hate? is now available via Lockjaw Records